I was wondering how to get into the tea business at the buying locally and/or importing stages? There has to be a middleman between the plantations and the companies that buys the teas to import them into the US, for example. How would one go about getting involved with that side of the tea industry?

Learn all you can about tea, the US tea market and about importing. Most of the bigger specialty tea companies do their own importing and buy direct. If you could become an assistant tea buyer at one of them for awhile, it would certainly be a good education.